NASA is also being hit with counterfeiting problems. At this year’s NASA Project Management Challenge, presenters documented how counterfeit parts have impacted NASA’s and the U.S. military’s products and programs, resulting in higher project costs, reduced performance, product failure, and extensive delays.
In 2009, a NASA probe project was delayed nine months and exceeded its budget by more than 20%, partly because of a counterfeit part. According to BrandWatch Technologies, a global brand security and product authentication solutions specialist, the problem extends beyond NASA’s dollars and timelines, risking personal safety, diminishing confidence in U.S. aerospace programs, and impacting the business of legitimate component manufacturers.
In response to its counterfeit problems, NASA adopted SAE AS5553, an aerospace parts standard issued in 2009. The standard was developed to mitigate the space agency’s and the military’s risk of “receiving and installing counterfeit electronic parts.” The standard recommends subjecting parts to eight individual tests, including x-rays, thermal cycling, and electrical testing, all designed to ensure the compliance of the products that NASA and the U.S. military purchase.
RoHS & REACH
The European Union’s (EU) Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) programs are moving targets for the industry as EU-based regulatory agencies continue to study the impact of certain possible amendments to the RoHS directive and change the language and restrictions of their environmental rules.
The good news for companies that serve EOL markets is that the military is exempt from many chip and other component restrictions in the RoHS directive. However, much of the tooling and manufacturability of chips and other components has already shifted to meet RoHS requirements—globally.
Environmental regulations such as RoHS and REACH have necessitated full disclosure of materials used within products. Some of the regulations hold manufacturers and OEMs responsible for the afterlife of their products.
Torp says that IPC volunteers have been working on standards to help with materials declarations under the EU-originated environmental regulations that specifically target the electronics industry, including the recently updated IPC-1752A, Materials Declaration Management, and IPC-1756, Materials Process Data Management. IPC also holds several educational events throughout the year to help the industry understand compliance requirements.
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Relatively new and emerging military-critical chip technologies also are in commercial development, such as gallium nitride (GaN) (see “GaN Platform Promises Tenfold Boost In Power”). The deployment in electronic warfare, next-generation radar, and covert communications is expected to represent 50% of the $376 million market for GaN components in 2014. For commercial applications, the emerging demand for low-voltage power conversion is expected to supplement a sluggish adoption of GaN components in wireless infrastructure that is projected to continue through 2012.
“I don’t believe the industry has matured to the level where obsolete parts are available,” says Michael Hatcher, associate analyst with Strategy Analysts, a market research organization. “The U.S. defense industry is deploying the technology in electronic warfare, largely anti-IED (improvised explosive device) jammer applications, where the key requirements are a combination of high output power and wideband RF emission, rather than the more sophisticated needs of an AESA (active electronically scanned array, which is used, for example, in the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet) radar system.”
CURRENT (NOT OBSOLETE) INFO
Need more information? Industry experts and volunteers have been working together to update standards to reflect current best practices used in design, fabrication, and user assembly of electronics. The JEDEC Solid State Technology Association (formerly the Joint Electron Devices Engineering Council) standard JESD-48B covers obsolescence issues. It was revised in May 2005 to include an annex that made note of reporting EOL information to the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP).
Most participants in GIDEP are major defense/aerospace contractors and subcontractors seeking to reduce or eliminate expenditures by sharing technical information essential during the research, design, development, production, and even operational phases of the life cycle of systems.
The JEDEC document is intended to help manage the EOL supply by establishing requirements for timely customer notification of planned product discontinuance or transitioning ongoing requirements to alternate products. It can be found at www.jedec.org/standards-documents/results/taxonomy:3548.